October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and, obviously, I am anxious to spread the word about important causes or new initiatives. This one really caught my eye. Have you head about it?

Dr. Susan Love has recently started the Army of Women initiative. She believes that the answer to finding a cure for Breast Cancer lies entirely in research. Simply doing more research will give all of us important answers – and potentially even a cure.

However, to do research, doctors need participants. The issue? There are not always participants available for research, whether it be the number of women or the right demographic of women available to deem a study’s results significant or successful. And while they would like to see women with breast cancer participate, this project is about every woman. They need women from every background, with or without a history of breast cancer, of all different ages and races, found all over the United States (they do hope to find volunteers internationally in the future).

So, to find the numbers and types of participants needed for research, Dr. Love has started the Army of Women project. It is simply an opporitunity for women like you and I to truly make a difference as researchers find a cure for Breast Cancer. All we need to do is sign up and wait. In a few months, they will email us information about local research projects. If we would like to participate, we can. If we don’t feel up to getting involved in that particular study, we don’t have to. It is always our choice, we self select ourselves for whichever study we would like to be involved in. Regardless, this initiative will offer researchers a database filled with thousands of women. In fact, they are aiming for over 1,000,000 registrants. Pretty cool, huh?

(Forgive me as I offer a quick sidebar here, it will only take a sec.)

Surprisingly enough, back in the day, I was a science major. I spent hours involved with, participating in or reading about research. At the start of one of my very first research classes, a favorite professor gave all of us wise advice. Reminding me a bit of Gandhi, she said something to the tune of: “If you want to see change happen, if you want to see results, if you want answers – you need to be a part of the process that makes it happen. If you are ever asked to be a part of research, take the time, respond, do the survey, offer yourself. Your time will mean results and evidence. And ultimately, it could mean answers to important questions. Always participate.” And since then, if I get a market research questionnaire, a pop up, a phone call asking me to rate my experience on a scale between 1 and 10, I do it. It is our responsibility to find the answers to our problems. And breast cancer is one heck of a problem. If your involvement in research brings us one step closer to a cure, you would do it, right?